Demise of Nations News

• Gang-Rating & Ranking: category [GANG] added that has ratings & rankings for ganging-type games.
  
• Game Broadcasts (Chat): re-formatted again to be better readable (with proper line breaks).
  
• Game Broadcasts: [LONE] means lone wolf games (no clans), [SOLE] means max. 1/clan and [GANG] is open to everyone.
  
• Game Broadcasts/Icons: please note, until everyone has upgraded to the latest version of the game, icons for game broadcasts can be wrong (even if you have the latest version).
  
• Game Invites: private message game invites streamlined so they match the chat.
  
• Game Setup (Multiplayer): games can now be restricted to ranked players. Including which players with selected min. & max. ranks are allowed to join. Similar to rating restrictions.
  
• Event Setup (Moderators): game events can now be restricted to ranked players. Including which players with selected min. & max. ranks are allowed to join. Similar to rating restrictions.
  
• Quick Join Games: they are now better advertised in chat (with number of current players that joined).
  
• Quick Join Games: after a new quick-join game was just created, the service tries to wait for a little longer initially trying to find a larger pool of players (if possible).
  
• Friends & Clan Server: sets the minimum default to '2' for max. per clan given the assumption is one plays with friends.
  
• Player Listing: player listing for games improved with colors and abbrevations.
  
• Player Listing & AFK & Kicking: game owners and moderators can now remove AFK-players before a game starts if they want to do so.
  
• Player Listing for "Incognito": now visible to moderators also (for moderation).
  
• Game Info Popup: shows the rating and ranking limitations now also.
  
• Ranking System: information popup added that explains how it works.
  
• Tournaments: dropdown list for tournaments now allows selecting all the numbers between 2-10000.
  
• Downloaded Maps: UI updated so they can now both be searched and sorted.
  
• Translation Center: improved the check & warning when you are trying to translate to a language which you shouldn't.
  
• Asset Loading: there is now a loading indicator at the start of the game in the menu screens. It indicates that assets are still loaded in the background.
  
• Language: latest translations added - Thanks :-D
  
• Language: bugfix for double-spaces in manual (should have been a single space).
  
• Game Manual: explained the chat broadcast tags [LONE], [SOLO] and [GANG].
  
• Maintenance: updated Droid to OS version 12 (API Level 31)
  
• Bugfix: game API returns the 1. frame of an animation, if an image is animated (rather than the full BG).
  
• Bugfix: max. turn selection when showing joinable games didn't work anymore.
  
• Bugfix: max./clan selection when showing joinable games didn't work anymore.
  
• Bugfix Crashes: when looking at games list without being properly logged in.
  
• Bugfix Crashes: not being able to properly initialize constructor for room configuration (complex initialization).
  

• Teaming Accounts: family members and friends playing together will now be marked as "Teaming". This is not a punishment, but rather to foster fair-play towards solo players. Same as for clan players, those accounts are restricted to the friends and clan section.
  
• Teaming Accounts Marker: players that have been found in solo games playing with friends will be tagged with "Teaming". That will prevent players to join solo games. This is not a punishment, playing with friends is fine, but the marker prevents players from mistakenly joining solo games.
  
• Flagged Accounts: are now prevented from posting in the chat (abuse and manner).
  
• Family & Friends: there are now additional checks in place to prevent friends & family to play together in solo-games. It's against our fair-play rule. Please join games in the clan & friends section instead if you want to play together.
  
• Family & Friends: there is now internal tracking to identify friends playing together outside officially being in either (a) a clan or (b) marked as team-player.
  
• Password Protected Games: they are NOT checked anymore if players violate the max. clan players/game rule. Given they are private and someone has a password, it can be joined no matter what.
  
• Game Broadcasts (Chat): reformatted the game broadcasts in the chat to be more readable (also can now fully be translated).
  
• Server Time: chat command /time added which returns the date & time on the server (it's generally in UTC).
  
• Server Time: using the deoration {TIME:} will replace the UTC-time to the local time for the person that is viewing the text.
  
• Copy/Paste: copying the link for an user is now supported also (user://...). Available when right-clicking (or long-pressing) on a user's username in the profile popup.
  
• Copy/Paste: copying the link for a game now is available also (top/right corner button next to the title of a game).
  
• Game UI: game listing now also indicates which games are intended for teaming or no.
  
• Game UI: made some popups taller on larger screens, so more is visible if possible without scrolling.
  
• Language: latest translations added - Thanks :-D
  
• Language: misc. textual updates for clarity in admin section.
  
• Game Manual: updated the section regarding clans, friends & family members to let them know they should not join games designated to solo players.
  
• Game Manual: added instructions on what the escape characters are for the tags, i.e. ^[ and ^].
  
• Game Manual: account status icons listed with their corresponding meaning.
  
• Investigations: streamlined the interface by grouping related and also adding additional options & information.
  
• Admin Guide: updated the "Cheat Investigation" section with more detail what is cheating and what is not.
  
• Admin Guide: update for flagging section (effects on players).
  
• Admin Guide: there is now the option to mark players as "Teaming". This is not a punishment, it simply forces friends & family members to play in the friends and clan section.
  
• Bugfix(?): deselecting a selected text when pressing the ENTER key. Prevents sending empty messages!
  
• Bugfix: user administration panel updated to all fits nicely even on small screens (moderators).
  
• Bugfix: game links can now also be posted on the wall and properly function (i.e. the open the popup).
  
• Bugfix: quick join games didn't work properly. The index didn't increment properly, preventing new games from being created when an existing game already existed.
  
• Bugfix Crashes: investigation popup could crash.
  

• Multiplayer Games: game creators can now pin game-wall posts (or delete offending messages by players).
  
• Lone Wolf Server (Multiplayer): clan-players are now prevented from joining (improving fairness).
  
• Username Changes: username changes are now available for all types of accounts (incl. guest accounts). You can change your username for free during the first 24h, after that any changes are paid. Giving free username changes has been a lot of busywork for the moderators, that's why the policy has changed. Sorry for the inconvenience.
  
• Username Changes/New Accounts: usernames can now be changed freely during the 24h after account creation.
  
• Username Changes/Old accounts: if you have an older account, and you didn't get a free name change, you have till March 31, 2022 to get your name changed. After that, changing the name is a paid feature. Please contact the moderators with your username if you want to change it. Any messages requesting to change the username without an actual username given will be ignored.
  
• Clan Names: can now be changed also.
  
• Account Verification: requires username and password now, so people remember what they used and also change the password in case it was auto-generated.
  
• Language: latest translations added - Thanks :-D
  
• Game Manual: lists the available text decorations for the game (moved out of admin guide into regular manual).
  
• Game Manual: RTF export now supports images and is better formatted.
  
• Investigated (reported by Hustla): 1. place finisher didn't properly get the 1. place award and ratings. Problem not found and not able to reproduce (sorting checked).
  
• UI: improved the copy/paste popup for text messages. Should now work always also on touch screens using long-touch.
  
• UI: minor update for dropdown list (better alignment).
  
• UI: awards will not be capped at "999+" anymore and show larger number also.
  
• UI: map scroll speed can be adjusted (in game's settings).
  
• Mouse: option to capture the mouse cursor in the window added (defaults to fullscreen only for now).
  
• Internal: collection ArrayList replaced with faster internal implementation.
  
• Internal: minor performance update due to better utilization of suitable collection classes (no auto-boxing).
  
• Internal: fail-safes added for chat server (string checks).
  
• Admin Guide: information that we cannot hand out passwords for players that cannot log in. They need to remember.
  
• Moderating: player-created games can be deleted by the owner or Executive members.
  
• Moderating: incognito games a player is in are shown to moderators also.
  
• Maintenance: location lookup database updated.
  
• Backup: changed the backup interval to daily. Please note, some servers will be down for a few minutes daily around UTC 9:00 and UTC 9:30 to perform the backup. Sorry for the inconvenience.
  
• Bugfix: under some circumstances, a dead faction could still give e.g. -1% permanent negative happiness due to a declaration of war that was created directly after it perished.
  
• Bugfix: animated GIF export using ALT+F2 not properly working (transparent color problem).
  
• Bugfix AI: fuel consumption wasn't properly calculated.
  
• Bugfix Clan Rating: the bottom instead of the top player ratings were taken to calculate the average clan rating.
  
• Bugfix: preventing line breaks when number for stone, wood etc. are too big.
  
• Bugfix: looping text in Arabic had spaces added which resulted in the text to be wrongly rendered.
  
• Bugfix: retaining images could result in the callback not be called causing a locked screen.
  
• Bugfix: some smilies including the '|' character didn't render due to the parser believing it to be a control character.
  
• Bugfix: prevent OpenGL invalid value errors if glScissor(...) had negative width.
  
• Bugfix: parsing the {RISE} tag parameters took the wrong index [1] instead of [0].
  
• Bugfix: improved parsing of country/language to obtain correct store (especially Droid for CN).
  
• Bugfix: moderators can now force-add a user to a clan (was failing if no clan request was pending also).
  
• Bugfix: countdown timer value was written wrong for certain hour-values (e.g. 1080).
  
• Bugfix: proper text escaping for error message when creating a tournament or so. Won't show "" anymore.
  
• Bugfix Attempt: mail system timeouts by better synchronization (mail deletion).
  
• Bugfix Crashes: when the window was resize too disproportional causing a too wide or tall texture buffer to be requested.
  
• Bugfix Crashes: legacy map town overviews were crashing (polygons didn't have enough points defined).
  
• Bugfix Crashes: game could crash when being shut down due to still executing actions after everything is disposed.
  
• Bugfix Crashes: random events could have division by '0'.
  
• Bugfix Crashes: game could crash if start up in fullscreen mode was enabled.
  
• Bugfix Freezes: fixed some problems while installing file handlers on Mac OS X (cause freezes due to starting on 1. thread requirement).
  

Bugfix for crashes. Playing legacy maps and opening town overviews produced crashes.